As father walked into the room we all stood up to welcome him. He came in and sat at the head of the table before waving at us to sit as well. 

“Isn't father-in-law joining us?” Estelle, my 1st step mother asked. 

“No, he finished what he was here for and went on his way.” He paused for a few seconds then looked at me. 

“It is and has always been family tradition that the wealth we generate individually will be our personal wealth, nothing will take that away from you.” He then looked at the other members of the family.

“That holds true for all of you as well.” Well, that was that. 

We started our meals and the family began chatting with each other. I mostly just sat in silence until the meal was over. After dessert father had one more thing to say. He raised a glass in my direction. 

“Congratulations on your momentous achievement. You’ve brought pride to the family name and I’m sure you will continue to do so, cheers.”

“Cheers.” Huh. Can’t believe I escape-

“We never had our conversation, come speak with me after this.” There it is. 

After eating, we went our separate ways. I followed father to his office and he sat on a couch and motioned for me to sit on the couch opposing him. I sat down facing me and waited for him to start. But he didn’t, he just sat there looking at me, making me uncomfortable, his expression unreadable. Then he closed his eyes and sighed before looking at me again. 

“I won’t ask your reasons for hiding your progress from me. To already have reached the state of saturation you have tells me where you are level wise.” He paused for a bit.

“Next week, I’m taking you to meet the emperor. Be prepared. He is going to award you generously for your research, he might even give you a lesser title and some land of your own. But….” He paused again, then looked like he was about to say something but held himself back. He just shook his head and with the shooing motion. 

“Never mind, you can go.” I left. 

As I got back to my room, I started thinking of what I wanted to do. 

‘Land of my own huh, probably won’t be anything major but I can perform some project with that land.’ I smiled, I knew exactly what I would do with land.

‘Project world tree, huh, been a while since I thought that up.’ Creating an artificial world tree would take lots of preparation, but that’ll have to wait as I might not even be getting the land. 

‘Oh well.’ I tucked in for the night. 

The next couple of days saw me trying to relax until my upcoming trip to meet the emperor. I got a lot of inquiries sent to me by various people, researchers I assume, to talk about my project but I ignored them all. I was very thorough in the report after all and it had already been replicated a number of times by other people. 

‘Plus, it’ll be too bothersome.’

People around the house were paying quite a bit more attention to me though, monitoring my every move from in the morning when I go practice my swordplay to the afternoons I mostly spend in the library. My siblings also started paying a little more attention as my existence became something they could no longer ignore. Fabian and Gideon in particular started paying closer attention to me for a different reason. Apart from me, they were the most talented in terms of aura and I could tell that they had both reached the level of conceptualization, though I never cared to investigate more. I think they wanted to find out my level but genuinely didn't know how to ask, oh well. 

On the day of the departure, we were ready early in the morning and left immediately after breakfast. We completed the journey through the teleportation ark and to the royal castle in silence. I looked out the window of the carriage as we were coming up on the gates and even I had to be impressed. It was quite the grandiose sight if I do say so myself. The building itself stood tall, with arching architecture, multiple towers and stone which seemed to be made of gold itself that shone under the sun. 

‘Truly, a masterpiece of a building.’

We entered the gates to a line of trees on either side of us along with a sprawling garden that just seemed to lighten up the atmosphere. Our carriage was pulled to a stop in front of what seemed to be the main building and we left to be greeted by a butler with guards behind him. He bowed. 

“Greetings, your highness. His imperial majesty, the emperor, expects you now.’ We  followed his lead through the palace until we came upon a large wooden door.

“Announcing his highness, the grand duke Whitefyre and the young lord Whitefyre.”

“Let them in.” The butler opened the door to a throne room that was surprisingly modest in comparison to everything else. But that didn’t hold my attention for long.

‘Truly a living god.’ Shining, he was just shining. His right elbow was resting on the hand of the throne with his head propped on his palm and legs crossed, golden hair falling across his forehead and golden eyes half mast as he just stared at me. I was looking at something otherworldly, directly. I felt pinpricks of heat beating at my skin and a weight on my shoulders that urged me to kneel down. The mana in the air was palpable and I felt myself starting to sweat only for it to dry up. 

‘Heat, intense searing heat. Bright shining light, a gravity that wants to just crush me and a sense of life giving energy that can bring a desert to life. He has a divinity of the sun.’